Wednesday, August 12, 2015

Star Wars Armada - Battle Report: Corvettes vs Motti

Prime opponent Sean and I were finally able to get another game of Armada in! As always, my game room is the lab--and this time I wanted to finally put a Corvette swarm on the board. I knew that it wouldn't be as strong as I once thought, but I had yet to see for myself! It should do okay unless it runs into the Motti brick wall! Oh. Prime Opponent went for his first 3 VSD Motti build. Ouch!

With a 1 point "bid", Sean elected to go first and chose Hyperspace Assault from my objectives. I planned to get Salvation back there and just hammer away. So, how did the swarm do? Read on to find out!

Opening board. A school of Corvettes hang on the left, while Mon Mothma plans to go wide to the right.

All craft accelerate to attack speed!

On the top of two, I elect to spring my ambush. Do you see my critical mistake? Despite knowing exactly how I wanted to place it, I totally goofed and made Salvation's port side a valid target for the VSD's Starboard batteries. I totally knew not to do that and was eye-balling thinking "Yep good to go" until about 30 seconds later when I realized--"Oh God. What have I done?"

WHY?! Sean offered to let me take it back, but it's the lab! Better to be burned by it, and remember. Maybe I'll do a Nebulon jouster list next and I can learn from my mistakes!

Salvation gets totally hammered, but is still alive. The rest of the 'Vettes move into range!

Like pirhanas on a shark.

Predictably, Salvation goes down hard after my total flubbing of it's angle. Losing the major source of rear-arc damage I had planned for is going to hurt the list. The 'Vettes just can't bring down Motti VSDs fast enough!

Most of the Corvettes make it behind the mean end of the VSDs...

But they're way worse for wear. I only let one or two front-arc shots go off but... ouch!

Corvettes start dropping.

But hey, my A-Wing has been doing some good damage! I'll give it that!

In fact, the A-Wing delivers the final blow to one of the VSDs.

But by the end of the game, despite good positioning, I just can't knock down the last VSD.

We get 5 damage cards on the middle VSD, but that's all we can muster! Mon Mothma and one other Corvette escape to hyper-space. Ouch! Sean wins by a margin of victory (MoV) of 90 or so.

Conclusion: If Salvation had just not been totally flubbed, I might have had it! That extra dice into the rear would've been huge. I blame my exhaustion from having just returned from Gencon (after a canceled flight in Chicago!). Yeah, that's what it was!

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